


Two: As In Two Wolves

by kumatt



Category: Original Work
Genre: Conspiracies, Hallucinations, Horror, M/M, Psychedelic, Small Town Weirdness, Summer, bad trips, summer vacation gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 11:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kumatt/pseuds/kumatt
Summary: First summer break back home after going off to college.First time back with your old best friend.Not the first time wondering what the fuck is wrong with your town, but maybe the first time it's got you this scared.





	Two: As In Two Wolves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlight/gifts).



> This is a gift for the lovely [@redlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlight/pseuds/redlight). This is my gift to you as part of the summer gift exchange. I hope you get a kick out of it!
> 
> The prompt was: "spooky shenanigans in the summer! a student comes home from college for break and discovers that their childhood home is infested with creatures of the supernatural spooky kind. they perhaps become frenemies. were the student's parents ever even real? is this house real? are we all in night vale? discuss."

Peter stares out over rolling hills. The sun is setting. The breeze is cool.

Then the breeze picks up. It whips at his face. The land far away shimmers and shifts. The hills rumble and roll.

The red sky turns redder. Far away in the valley, the river picks up the colour, and it flows towards him. Boiling blood.

Soon the wind is tossing pebbles at his face. The hills have melted. The blood is ankle deep. He tries to wade to higher ground, but his feet are stuck in mud.

The trees turn to splinters and fragment into dust. He reaches out a hand, grabbing at air, trying to get away when his fingers start falling off.

He can see his own face, sees it start to collapse when the Greyhound lurches to a stop and his eyes snap open. "Burgainville," says the bus driver.

Ah, home at last. Peter sighs and blinks the sleep from his eyes.

He grabs his bag off the rack and slumps off the bus. Summer break in small town Canada. Should be nice.

* * *

The bus grinds into gear and pulls away, leaving Peter at the empty bus station. He sits on a bench and pulls out his phone. Dead. Fucker. He leans his head back. It's dusk. His folks know what bus he was on. They'll be here soon.

He looks out at the sunset. Lighting the water tower and the one apartment building in oranges and purples. Looks different. He closes his eyes and wonders idly about the dream.

* * *

His mother navigates the embarrassing SUV around a corner and the land dips down. There's Joh, an old school buddy, at the intersection. Peter goes to wave and the car lurches down. The land is collapsing. They're driving headfirst into a giant sinkhole. Eyes open! Dozed off. But really is there. Peter waves as they pass but John misses it.

At home, the fried chicken is great. The conversation is awful. And the images that parade before his eyelids are worst of all.

Later, Peter lies down in his bed. Ok. So you took some mushrooms before you got on the bus and they're kicking in later than you expected. This is fine. Peter closes his eyes experimentally and a vision of a giant knife appears above him. Nope. He looks at his ceiling and the picture of the jetski he taped to it a lifetime ago. Jetskis are still cool. Fuck you.

Peter closes his eyes again. There's the knife. He keeps his eyes closed. The knife descends. Down down towards his body lying on the bed. The knife makes a long, deep cut through his abdomen. Fine. That's fine. There's no blood, even. He resists the urge to run his hands along his actual stomach.

This is a hallucination. Not what he expected. But cool, in a way.

* * *

Something bangs on the window. His buddy Aaron. Peter swallows. He feels like he spent all school year thinking of stuff he wanted to talk to Aaron about, but now doesn’t feel like the time.

"Dude," says Aaron through the closed window. Aaron is... just as always. He's got something going on. Peter opens the window.

"Aaron, what's up. I was gonna call."

"Ok, dude. Come with me."

"I'm not in the mood to smoke."

"Ok, but fucking come with me anyway."

Peter shrugs his bag back on and ducks out the back door, making an excuse to whoever might be wanting one.

"So, what's up? I'm tired. Couldn't we hang out tomorrow?"

"No, listen. There's a situation."

Peter studies Aaron while they walk down the block. The sky's almost black, and the wind is still.

"What kind of situation?"

"Everything is fucked."

"Ok. Sounds like home."

"Yeah, exactly, but like, more so, ok?"

"What are you talking about?"

"There's some sort of conspiracy."

Peter stops. Enough. "Look dude. Can I tell you something? I'm just coming down off of mushrooms at the moment and I don't think I've got it in me to-"

Aaron's a couple steps ahead. A couple steps that place him in an intersection. Peter watches, and then Aaron watches, as a car moves along the cross-street at speed. 

"Hey, fuck-" says Aaron, and then the car strikes him. Strikes him and keeps moving. Aaron's body rolls to a stop in the road.

Peter puts his hands on his head and reels his eyes around. Looking for... witnesses? Help? An adult?

He closes his eyes. And Aaron's standing there. Laughing. Right. That was a hallucination. He opens his eyes. And the laughing stops. Aaron's back on the pavement. This is backwards.

Peter inches forward. "Aaron?" No response.

He closes his eyes. And Aaron is on his feet. The ground, the land, the sky all seem to fade out around him. He's not laughing anymore, but he seems amused.

"Hey, dude. Did I just get hit by a car?"

"You. Shit," Peter pries his eyes back open. This version of the world is not improving. But there's no sirens.

"I should call 911," says Peter haltingly. He closes his eyes.

"No, dude, you should not call 911."

"Why not? You're on the ground, man."

"Because I'm dead already, and listen. They just aren't going to come, ok?"

"I think I'm having a panic attack."

"Sounds like you."

"Shut up."

"You're either fine and I keep hallucinating you dead, or you're dead and I keep hallucinating you alive."

"Think what you want, but in the meantime, I have shit to tell you. Wait, what the fuck is that?”

Peter turns to look. Something dark and liquid is flowing towards them down the street. It splashes up against the curb and churns where it catches on storm drains. It washes around their feet and starts to rise. Blood. It flows higher, it catches at Aaron’s feet and he stumbles.

“What the fuck is this now?”

“This is my blood river dream from earlier,” says Peter, coming all the way back around to calm. “I… sorry? Watch your step?”

But Aaron stumbles, and then the rising current carries him away.

Peter opens his eyes reluctantly. It’s as before. One dead body. No sirens.

* * *

"Ok, so..." Peter says, walking, marching almost, towards Main St.. He swings his arms and bats at his thighs as he walks. He watches his shadow flap around in the sodium streetlight.

"This is..."

He stops and closes his eyes. No Aaron. "I should go back."

The streetlights above catch fire. The flare up yellow red. Like giant bent candles. He opens his eyes.

"Or I should go to... I don't know. I... I'm tripping out."

Peter stands still. Puts his hands to his sides.

"I'm tripping out. I'm having a bad trip. I'm going to walk around and clear my head."

He sets himself in motion, and can't quite keep from the nervous flailing of his arms, all the same.

* * *

Downtown is quiet. He passes the video rental place that also rents rototillers and lawn tractors. He passes the gauntlet of gas stations. He's on the should-be-quaint main drag. Except quaint started packing when Subway moved in, and was already gone by the time the vape shop had opened. Still has some gift shops, anyway. And one damned tenacious shoe store.

Peter jumps when a car turns onto the street two blocks down. But it's not the same car. He backs up against the storefronts despite himself.

The car pulls up and the window slides down. "Peter Beech! Back for summer break?"

Mr. Danfield. That's who this is. Peter's brain stalls. This is a regular person. This is his chemistry teacher. Was his chemistry teacher. Who is now just a fellow adult human? Should he call him "Stuart" now?

"Hey Mr. Danfield. Uh, how are you?"

"I'm well. Just came downtown to pick out a movie."

"Oh, ah, nice."

Peter closes his eyes. Need to catch up with reality. Aaron's there. Standing behind Mr. Forest's car.

"Dude. Your blood wave sucks."

Eyes open.

"What about you?"

"Uh, what about me?"

"What brings you downtown Peter? I'm honestly surprised to see you by yourself. You're still friends with Aaron, I hope."

Peter staggers just a little, tries to lean nonchalantly on a mailbox. But he has to grab hold. Feeling faint. He closes his eyes again.

"Don't fucking talk to that guy."

Peter looks at Aaron. Then Mr. Danfield, who's still there. But his hair looks like it's underwater. And his car is showing some subliminal Transformers behaviour. Peter opens his eyes.

"Everything ok?"

"Oh, ha. Yeah. I'm just on my way to see Aaron now. Uh. Goodnight Mr. Danfield."

* * *

Around behind the Subway, Peter slumps against a dumpster and squeezes his eyes shut.

"Dude, you have to watch out."

"Fucking... You got killed. You're dead."

Eyes open. No Aaron. Eyes closed. Aaron. Plus some snakes are working their way through the sky.

"Dude, this trip you're on is... different from how I remember it."

"Yeah, well, maybe it's different from the point of view of being a hallucination."

"Hey. Listen. I can tell you're freaking out. And I guess, like, go nuts. But first. I need to tell you the thing."

Peter sighs and slides down the side of the dumpster. He nods, eyes still shut.

"The thing. It's really happening. It's not in your head. People in town are fucked. They've been acting weird. Like, they're trancing out."

"Ok. That sounds more like your thing."

"Yeah. Exactly, right? How am I the lucid one? But that's not all. I've seen shit. Weirder shit. Like, I started telling my sister one story and my fucking bus driver asked me how it ended the next day."

It's hard to glare at someone you can only see with your eyes closed, Peter finds. But he does his best.

"That's it?"

"Yes. No. But listen. That's real. Fucking Dorothy and fucking Clem didn't used to have a psychic fucking link, did they? That's not- that's not fucking all."

"Aaron. If you're just in my head, and you're dead, or I'm going insane, or whatever is happening, could you just proceed without flipping your own lid?"

"Yes. Ok. Sure." Aaron looks around. "Hey, dude. I think you're sobering up. Maybe that's good."

Peter follows Aaron's gaze. Aaron's hands are fading. His whole visage is becoming vague.

"I'm not sure. I really hope I'm going to wake up tomorrow and see you for real. But just in case, would you please tell me the whole entire conspiracy right now?"

"Ok, dude," says Aaron, now ghostly, fading. "Um, I guess that was basically it, actually."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah," says Aaron. "Oh, and they're acting super weird about the water tower."

And then Aaron is gone.

* * *

Peter wakes up in the morning feeling... normal, actually.

No alarm forces him out of bed early. And his parents have let him sleep in. Miracles.

He shuffles into the kitchen and pours himself some cereal.

Peter tries to get his phone booted up, but he forgot to charge it the night before. He plugs it in in his room and makes do reading over the paper like a grown up.

So much for magic mushrooms, he thinks. That sucked.

Unless... says his inner contrarian.

Unless nothing.

Peter looks at his mom, bustling around and about to head out. He should talk to her. But then what? Say what? "I'm worried my friend might have been killed last night, but I can't tell because I was blasted out of my mind on psychedelics."

He finishes as much of his cereal as he can. He pretends to be nonchalant for the nobody who's watching and then he’s out the door.

It's a nice day. Sunny. It must have rained later in the night. The air is clear.

Peter puts in his earbuds and listens to music. He’s willing himself to be cool. This isn’t a big deal. This must just be why drugs are bad.

Peter turns the corner onto the street where it went down and realizes he's holding his breath. There is no body, of course. He sighs. He closes his eyes and sees... nothing. He blinks and closes them again, more thoughtfully. He sees just the faint red of the sunlight shining through his eyelids. He tries to conjure Aaron in his mind's eye but it's just the memory of his face. No hallucination. No visions.

He walks forward absently, curious about the section of road. Daring it to be anything other than ordinary. There's a stain on the road. That could be a blood smear. But it could also be tar or a drip from a garbage truck. He walks up to it, starting to feel stupid. And wanting more and more to really see Aaron. For real. He nearly turns back early to go get his phone so he can make it happen, but he feels like he should see this through.

He reaches the spot and stares at it. Nothing. It really is nothing. He turns around to see if anyone's caught him studying the pavement. He glances through the shrubs beyond the ditch to see if the neighbours are out. Nope.

Something catches his eye in the ditch and he looks down.

Something's been dumped in the ditch.

Peter looks away. Scans the road again. Like he needs a distraction. Like he needs something to plausibly let him not look more closely at what he saw. But no. It's still an empty street.

Peter tucks his fingers into the palms of his hands and turns back. It's definitely a body in the ditch. It's definitely Aaron.

His eyes are open and milky. His skin is pale and blotchy.

Peter hears himself moaning. He closes his eyes tightly. Nothing but darkness.

Eyes open, and there's Aaron.

He looks around one more time and then he's running home.

His breathing is loud in his ears. Words run through his head and he can't tell which ones he's saying out loud.

No.

Aaron.

Fuck.

I can't deal with this.

I need help.

Fuck.

Aaron.

He reaches his house and nobody's home. Which is probably best, but also feels not great. 

Peter nearly staggers into his bedroom. He grabs the door handle to shut it and stares at the knob.

Fucking why? Is this door going to keep reality out?

He closes it anyway. It'll keep his parents out. Maybe. Is that good? Who knows.

He lays on his back and stares at one clipped out magazine ad for a Dragonfly brand jetski and feels the gears of his mind grind themselves to paste. Component thoughts jam together, fall apart. That jetski can go up to 105 kilometers per hour. My friend is dead. He's really dead. He died last night. He was hit by a car last night. I watched him get hit by a car. That jetski is available at three different price points. I watched him get hit, and he might not have been dead. But he is now. But those Jetski specs...

Peter pulls his hands up to his face. He rolls onto his side and tucks his knees up to his chest. The bright sunshine blasts in through the window blinds. Reality is definitely not being kept at bay.

Peter heaves and starts to cry.

I'm feeling sorry for myself.

I'm avoiding reality.

I'm so fucking scared.

I'm not up to this.

I'm... lonely.

The sobs subside into sniffs. His legs grow stiff and he stretches them back out. Eyes still closed.

His breathing stills and he listens to the quiet sounds of a small town at mid-day. He starts to notice small artifacts parade across his vision. The halo of the ceiling light marked in reverse on his retina. The small flecks and flashes and vague sense of static of seeing nothing.

He hears a school bus drive by. That'll be Clem. Clem who asks about stories he’s never heard. That was a weird dream. Or trip. Or whatever.

Except it wasn't. Because the dead don't stay dead when the trip is over. It was all better last night, actually, god dammit. Aaron was dead, but he was a lot more talkative.

Peter opens his eyes.

I still like jetskis. I'm not dead yet. And fuck everything anyway.

He sits up and grabs his bag off the floor. He fishes around for a wadded up pack of tin foil at the bottom.

He unwraps it on his tiny desk, still strewn with the collected bullshit of his highschool life. Inside the foil are some shriveled, pale fragments of something organic. Disgusting. Dried magic mushrooms are disgusting. And they smell worse. But Aaron said I can believe what I want, and I want to believe that some how this will fucking work.

Standing in the empty kitchen, Peter chews on the dessicated mushrooms as much as he can bear and then swallows them, chasing them with a big swig of Sunny D. This must be what it feels like to be in Speilberg movie about wholesome suburban life. Maybe he can reference this for his film studies term paper. Why not.

Ok, now what? The bad idea quality of dropping more mushrooms in the current circumstances sits in the pit of Peter’s stomach like a mixture of orange drink and Psilocybin. Well, I should at least get out of the house so I don’t have to deal with my parents.

Peter sets out towards downtown, but taking the opposite route. Whatever else is true, he does not need to look into that ditch. He has no idea what he'll see when he closes his eyes when the drugs kick in, but ever since he saw Aaron's body, that's the only thing screening on the inside of his eyelids.

He picks a route past other familiar places. The town is littered with the sites of infamous hijinks. Infamous at least to Peter and his fragmented clique of friends.

The weird playground by the elementary school where their friend Carey broke her arm at age 12, and again in 12th grade. The corner store that was supposed to be cool about selling liquor to kids, but apparently was actually uncool enough to call their parents. The place where Aaron and Peter tried to teach themselves bike tricks.

Right. Peter closes his eyes. There's the body in the ditch. Eyes open.

He thinks back to his bus ride 14 hours ago, back before the sensible world ended and then this whatever it is took its place.

How long did it take for these to kick in last time, he wonders.

He makes it to the shitty mall past the main drag. With half its stores closed, and the other half being a dollar store, a bank and a drug store. It took real oomph to believably loiter there. To believe that anybody would ever want to be there for the hangs, or that anyone would ever care enough to drive off a pack of shitty teens.

He pushes open the doors to the mall and walks down the air conditioned corridor. Satellite radio is playing on the speakers. Small clutches of seniors gather on the benches while even fewer shoppers make their way in or out. There’s a kiosk where baffled residents can try to check their government issued email accounts (issued to make up for the terrible internet service). Nobody uses it. There’s a big half set-up display for jacuzzis. And a smaller display where people can register their opposition to the mega-quarry that’s supposedly coming to town.

This is why it's hard to figure out when the drugs kick in. Because everything is already immediately insane upon even cursory inspection.

Peter finds an empty bench and sits himself down. Hanging out at the mall right now feels like some sort of terminal condition. He closes his eyes. There's the body. The body with its own terrible open eyes. The open eyes blink.

"Ok," says Aaron. "Hey."

Peter exhales long and slow. Trying not to bolt to his feet. Trying not to yell. There are olds nearby. It'd be a thing.

"Holy fuck Aaron," says Peter. Shit. He opens his eyes. Apparently he can speak in his own head when he's high. Nobody is reacting to him talking to himself.

Peter closes his eyes, and Aaron is there, but in the mall now. Standing, and alive. Or alive looking.

"Peter, my good sir. You appear to have found more drugs."

"I don't know what to do, Aaron."

"Go shoplift some skittles from the drug store."

"I..."

"I dunno, dude. I already told you what I know about all this. And I think we can both agree that I'm dead."

Peter slumps his head forward. His fingers knot into each other and he sways a little.

"You know what? Fuck it. That's a great idea."

Peter stands up and walks as casually as he can into the drug store. Shoplifting from this drug store was the high point of Aaron’s and Peter’s mall life.

Hands in pockets. Try not to draw attention to yourself.

You’re a 19 year old in a hoodie lurking your way through a store. You are probably drawing attention. 

Peter wonders how he ever got away with this. He feels like his tripping out skin is magnetic, sucking in attention from all eyeballs and security cameras. But at this point in his summer vacation, it feels like rethinking bad ideas isn't part of his lifestyle anymore. Like reconsidering anything might just be the difference between getting all the way across the bridge and falling into the crevasse as it collapses under you. You don't look back. You grab the bag of skittles and you shove it into your hoodie. Next you exit the store.

Peter tries to nonchalantly perform a rapid 360 scan. About 190 degrees in he spots his mother walking behind him. One foot steps on the other and he lands hard on the ground. The bag of skittles clatters noisily to the tile floor and slides away from him. He closes his eyes.

"Dude, this is a fantastic plan."

"Thanks, Aaron."

"No. No sarcasm. This is a fantastic plan. Watch."

Peter's phone rings. It is so loud. He goes deaf. No, he's just paralyzed. He opens his eyes. Somehow, Peter’s mother is not looking at him. She’s staring off into space, phone to her ear.

This can't last. She's only ten feet away. There's nowhere to hide, but meanwhile his phone continues to ring, so he answers it.

He puts the phone to his ear and says nothing.

"Peter?" he hears, and then hears again. Peter's mom's voice. From ten feet away and via cellular telephony. Peter can't help but stare at her.

"Uh, hi Mom," Peter watches her face, waiting for her to lock eyes with him. But she doesn't.

"Peter, I'm just at the mall. Do you want me to pick you up anything?"

Peter stares.

"Peter, you there?"

"Yeah, I uh-"

Peter closes his eyes.

"I told you,” says Aaron.

"What is happening?"

"Go closer."

Peter opens his eyes.

"Yeah, uh. Some, uh-" he pulls himself to his feet. He's facing her. She's not seeing him. "Some... skittles?"

"Oh Peter." she looks distracted. Staring straight through him. Bored. "They're bad for you."

She turns and walks back into the store.

"Uh."

"But you're on holiday. Why not. I'll see you at home. Text me if you want anything else. Maybe even something healthy," she hangs up.

Peter stares and stares. He whips around, looking for witnesses. Where are those thousand shoplifter-catching eyes?

The cashier glances idly at Peter's mother and then goes back to her phone.

He scoops the skittles off the floor and steps up to the cash.

"Hi, uh-" he says. She doesn't reply. He puts them on the counter.

"I'll uh-"

Nothing.

"I'm going to just take these. And not, uh, pay for them."

She looks his way and he freezes, but she's looking out through the glass into the mall. Then back to her phone.

"You know... stealing?"

She chuckles at her instagram feed.

He closes his eyes.

"Right?" says Aaron.

Peter opens his eyes, grabs the candy and walks blankly out of the store. He scans the scattered seniors and even more scattered shoppers. Nobody seems to be noticing him. He walks right up to three retired men sitting on a bench. They fully, completely ignore him.

He sits down beside them, slumps forward and closes his eyes.

The visions are starting to get richer. The mushrooms are still coming on. The paint on the mall walls is melting through kaleidoscope colours.

Aaron tries to smile and it falters.

“You’re getting it worse than me.”

“Why can’t they see me?”

The giant cartoon knife from Peter’s bedroom hallucination drops without warning. Aaron steps back but it cuts off one of his hands. Aaron looks at his cartoon stump with disappointment.

“Fucking. Dude. Hallucinations are supposed to be surprising and fun. This is scary and lame.”

“Sorry, ok? Just… what should I do now?”

“I don’t know,” says Aaron. Scanning around for the threatening knife. “Leave town?”

"Because... Because my life is only like this here?"

"Yeah, well. I mean, at least some of the shit is, you know, place-based, right?" Aaron looks left and the knife descends from the right. It cleaves off his shoulder and crosses through his midsection. He flops onto his back. "This sucks."

"I can't handle this, Aaron."

"Yeah, neither can I."

"Ok. Fuck it. Things all went to shit when I got here. If I have to keep going through whatever this is, I at least don't have to do it at this fucking mall. Or in this fucking town."

The knife comes down from a different angle. Descending point down, aiming for Aaron's face. 

Aaron frowns. Peter opens his eyes and decidedly keeps them open.

The mall around him is so normal. So apart. Peter shivers.

He hunches his shoulders and marches out. He tosses the bag of skittles at the wall before he pushes through the doors.

* * *

Peter walks, head down, making a beeline for his home. Who knows what is right, but it just feels like you don't leave town without at least stuffing some shit in your bag, right?

He cuts through the parking lot. Walks by main street. The more people he sees, the lonelier he gets. The familiar faces are the worst.

Behind the main street is the fire hall and city hall. Such as it is. And behind that, the old church and the graveyard, riding up the near side of Burgainville's one modest hill.

The graveyard is fine. Although Peter can't help wondering idly if hands are going to reach up and grab at him. He does his best not to close his eyes. Not yet. Aaron should... get over being diced to pieces? Reset? Who knows.

Up the hill. He can see more of the town from here. The harbor over beyond downtown. The highway off the other way. Getting out of here might be hard. But first thing's first. He gets to the top and walks by the foot of the water tower. There are some cars parked at the base of it.

Weird.

He walks past and then stops in his tracks. Eyes open. Keep them open. The water tower. What is up with the water tower?

He turns on his heel and walks back. What even happens in a water tower?

There's a ladder. Aaron and Peter used to dick around up on this hill and the bottom part of the ladder was always locked up in a little teen-proof cage. But not now. The cage is open.

Ok.

Onward and upward.

Just check. Find out what goes on in a water tower. Then home. Then out. Then... presumably... job, wife, taxes? Early retirement due to life being too insane?

At the top of the ladder is a walkway that works its way around the girth of the water tower. Halfway around, the walkway ends at a hatch. The hatch looks like it is almost always sealed shut, but seems to have been opened recently.

Ok. Or, maybe just die in here?

Peter opens the hatch and steps inside.

It's dark inside. He can hear water dripping. Which is on brand.

He sees a shimmer of water below him. It's just a big tank of water. Welp, check that off the bucket list.

But his eyes adjust to the dim light. There's something in the water. On the water. Clutching to the walls. It smells. It smells off. Like rot. Or mold. It’s a damp smell. Somehow overpowering. Peter closes his eyes despite himself.

The same scene greets him, but now lit in vivid colours. Like a living blacklight poster. If they made blacklight posters of moldy water towers. Before his eyes the mold begins to writhe. It bubbles and expands. Small lumps start rising out of it. Small caps. And then large caps. A sea of mushrooms. In and on and around the city water supply.

"That looks like a problem," says Aaron, who's there, at Peter's side.

The mushrooms expand and grow, and then the catwalk collapses, and Peter is falling, and soon he is in the water.

Although he's still falling.

Although he hasn't yet fallen.

Although gravity is on the blink.

Although his mind is made of galaxies.

Peter stretches out his hands. Runs them through a field of cello notes. He opens his eyes and drinks in the colour of east-north-east umami. He opens his mouth and whispers the smell of old books.

Then Peter opens his eyes, and he’s lying on his bed in his room. It’s dusk.

Water runs down the walls, rolling over a film of mold expanding down from the ceiling. It stinks like a dank, humid basement.

Peter shifts in his bed and it sloshes. He’s soaking wet, he realizes. Maybe he really did fall into the water tank. On the other hand, he did actually take magic mushrooms. He tries closing his eyes, and what’s interesting is, nothing changes. He sees the same scene. The same soggy room. The same sunset. And in the doorway, his mother.

“Mom…” says Peter. But she’s not looking at him. She tidies the room. She opens the closet shutters. His closet is overgrown with mushrooms, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She hangs two shirts she’s holding, both soaking wet.

"Peter, where are you?" says Peter's mom absently.

She pulls out her phone. A text appears on his. "Honey, where are you. Are you coming home for dinner? We're making pork chops."

"Fucking stop it," says Peter. "I want to talk to the manager. Leave my fucking mom out of it."

His mother remains silent. Continues to tidy.

“I can’t…” says Peter, panic rising in his voice. “Aaron? Where are you?”

Peter’s mom starts tidying his desk.

“Just stop!” says Peter, pulling himself to his feet. “Just fucking stop!”

Peter shoves the stuff on his desk onto the floor. His mom starts picking it all up.

“God!” shouts Peter. He grabs at his bookcase, and tips it over. Books, DVDs, games and toys clatter to the floor.

“Tsk Peter, this room…” says Peter’s mom to herself as she begins to pick up the wider mess.

Peter sits back on his bed, shaking his head. He watches mutely as his mother stacks his things neatly on his desk.

“Why not me?” he says, more or less to himself. “Why can’t I be with you? Why can’t you see me?”

Peter’s mom picks up some of Peter’s old hand-me-down toys. A viewmaster. A smurf. An ancient speak-and-spell. She freezes for a moment with the speak-and-spell in her hand, and then seems to think nothing of it and tosses it into the closet. It lands in the writhing bed of mushrooms sprouting out of the closet’s carpet. The mushrooms twine around the speak-and-spell and glow. Peter’s mom has long since lost interest, but Peter is transfixed.

The speak-and-spell lights up and emits its familiar four-note start-up melody.

“SPEAK.” it says. Peter slumps backwards onto the bed and then flinches forward again when he leans into the dampness.

“HELLO. SPEAK. TRY.”

“Ok,” says Peter. “Uh, what the fuck are you?”

"ARE." it says. "ARE. YOUR. FAMILY."

“I don’t think so,” says Peter shakily.

The speak-and-spell sits silent for a moment.

“Come on!” says Peter. “What the fuck are you? Psychic mushrooms?”

“YOU ARE CORRECT. WATER. SPACE. OTHER. LIFE. FRIENDS.”

“Yeah ok, I’ll buy that. You’re psychic mushrooms from outer space.”

“YOU ARE CORRECT.”

"Ok. And you're mind controlling everyone in town, maybe? Why not? But why can't anyone see me?"

"YOU. ARE-"

"Nevermind. What I really really want to know, is why the fuck did you kill Aaron?" Peter's crying.

"YOU ARE INCORRECT."

"Dammit. That guy who? Who got hit by a car and got left in a ditch and nobody gives a shit. That guy is super important ok?"

"YOU ARE INCORRECT."

"God," says Peter. His mom has left the room. 

"Here's an idea. Why shouldn't I burn this whole place down?"

"BAD. HELPER. DANGER. WARNING."

"You know, this would be a lot easier if you could just speak to me without that thing."

"HELPER," says the speak and spell and then a figure appears in the door. Not his mother. Not any of his family. It's Aaron.

He looks... well, he looks bad, but not as bad as he ought to.

"Hello," says Aaron. Real, flesh and blood and dead. "We want to talk. Let’s talk."

"Aaron?"

"Who is Aaron?" asks Aaron, sitting down on Peter’s old desk chair.

"What the fuck is this?" asks Peter.

"This is a helper we found. It can speak to you."

"You hit him with a car and left him in a ditch. You didn't find him."

"Oh. This is Aaron? We couldn't see him either, then."

"I guess I should just go ahead and ask: would you just, you know, un-haunt my home and all my family and friends and everyone and just fucking fuck off?"

"We could. We won't."

"Yeah. And you want to eat my brains too?"

"We do."

"So why haven't you? I'm about ready to pack it in."

Peter paces back and forth. Aaron sits stiffly.

"We would if we could. Your mind is preoccupied."

"You mean, with this fucking apocalypse?"

"No. With an unexpected psycho-fungal process. It seems to make you a poor host."

"You can't possess me because I'm on psychedelic mushrooms?"

"Probably."

“Ok,” says Peter. “So, first thing’s first.”

He scoops the tin foil of dried mushrooms up off the floor, unwraps them and stuffs them in his mouth. Even now, they’re noticeably disgusting.

“Is that why my hallucinations have been so weird since I got here?”

“Probably.”

"Is that why I keep seeing Aaron when I close my eyes?"

"His psyche is missing. Maybe your native fungal psychic process absorbed him when we could not. His mind was empty."

"He was probably stoned."

Peter stares at the floor. His dim bedroom lights make the moldy room feel smaller and tighter. The sky through the window is dark.

"So what if I just keep taking mushrooms? What if I... I don't know? Call the national guard? You're going to kill me or something right?"

"We don't plan on killing you. We're not killers. We just live this way."

"You live by taking over a whole town of people and making them your slaves?"

"They're not our slaves. They live like they did before. They think and feel and see each other. But we help. We mediate their experience."

"That's why they can't talk to me? You can't actually mind control them. You just sort of run their senses or something? So what, you just eat their brainwaves?"

"No, we eat their brains. We replace them with identical fungal processes. Then we eat their thoughts. It's fine."

"So, it's not so much that you don't want to kill me as that you can't kill me, huh? Nobody can even perceive me!"

"No, we can kill you right now. With your friend Aaron."

"Right," says Peter, looking around. Aaron stays where he was. "Well... let's not jump all the way to that. You've juiced Aaron all full of mushrooms or whatever, right?"

"We have."

"And you rebuilt his brain with mushroom process or whatever, right?"

"We did. Perfectly."

"Ok. And I've got his mind or soul or whatever in my head, or heart or whatever, right?"

"Possibly."

"And if, supposing I kissed Aaron. Because maybe I’ve had a crush on him this whole time,” Peter stops for air, then continues. “Like, this whole god damn time I’ve known him, and I’m about to die, and who gives a shit, even if he’s probably all clammy or whatever. Do you think he would mind?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think his soul would magically transfer back into his body and we would ride off into the sunset together?”

“No. I don’t think so. The sun has set.”

"Ok, let's find out," says Peter. He stands up. Aaron stays put. "Ok? This is a crazy idea that won't work, so it's fine right?"

Aaron doesn't say anything. Peter steps up to him. Looks at him up close. He's alive. After a fashion. Peter touches his arm. It's warm. Aaron watches without emotion.

He hesitates. On top of being stupid and gross and pointless, he feels like he doesn't want to die thinking about how he was the last person to violate Aaron's body. He closes his eyes.

And now, in the mirror of the world, it's all as it was, except Aaron is looking up at him. With eyes filled with emotion. He doesn't say anything, but he cocks his head sort of confoundedly. Nods hesitantly.

Eyes open. One hand on Aaron's cheek. Lean in. Kiss. Savour the moment.

Eyes open, Aaron is unphased. Eyes closed, Aaron is kissing back.

And then it's over.

Eyes-closed Aaron looks expectant. Confused.

"Are you now going to attempt to disrupt us and force us to kill you?" says Eyes-Open Aaron.

"I'm not. I mean, maybe. But I hope I already did."

"You did not. Nothing is disrupted. We don't want to kill you. Stay and release yourself of your native fungal process and we will welcome you. Your mother will see you. You can stay here."

"Cool. I mean, great. You eat my brain, and I can live here forever feeding some mushrooms in the water tower. Or… Let’s explore an alternative... Say I gave Aaron his own dose of psychedelic mushrooms. What would happen to him?"

"He would become catatonic and then he would die."

"Ok. And one more thing. And I mean this in the Columbo sense. Not the Steve Jobs sense. One more thing. What if I already dosed him, just now, when I kissed him. What if I chewed up a bunch of magic mushrooms and then pushed them right into his mouth like a fucking baby bird, when I had his mind or soul in me? What then?" Peter steps back. "Please. Please say this works."

Aaron stands and takes a step forward. He picks bits of mushroom out of his mouth. "You."

Another step forward. Peter steps back. "You have done it."

Aaron takes another step forward. Peter holds his ground. "You really did it." A smile inches onto Aaron's face.

"You made me wait through four years of high school and one year of college and the fucking end of the world to finally make a move, but you finally did it," says Aaron. "And also, you saved my life."

“Oh thank Christ,” says Peter. He stumbles forward and embraces Aaron.

“Now what?” says Aaron.

“Well, this whole town is fucked, our families can’t see us, psychic aliens want to kill us, and you’re made of mushrooms. On the other hand, neither of us seems to be dead. Fuck it, let’s go to the harbour, steal a jetski and sail off into the night.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title I guess refers to our heroes, but mostly comes from Speak & Spell, believe it or not. I downloaded all the samples to see if I could make useful sentences out of just the actual words it could say (I couldn't) but I did find out that it had phrases for disambiguating a few words, including "two". And it literally says "two, as in, two wolves". It's wild.


End file.
